Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, November 4, 1995 TAG: 9511060060
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
On the rear dashboard of Gov. George Allen's car Friday sat a white hat, one given to him by Canadian Regional Airlines during a trade mission last year.
He wore it Thursday night while making the coin toss at the University of Virginia-Florida State football game in Charlottesville. UVa won the coin toss - and went on to defeat the No.2- ranked team, FSU's first loss in four years of Atlantic Coast conference play.
Look for Allen to wear the hat on Election Day.
"It's my good-luck hat," said Allen, who swept through the Roanoke Valley on Friday on behalf of Republican House of Delegates challengers Newell Falkinburg and Trixie Averill.
"I feel a sense of momentum on the part of our Republican candidates," he said. "We have a chance to make history on Tuesday, and we would certainly like to see a Republican majority. I'm being cautiously optimistic."
Falkinburg, who is running a high-financed campaign against Del. Clifton "Chip" Woodrum, D-Roanoke, gave Allen a tour of a Southwest Roanoke dialysis center owned by Falkinburg's medical practice. Allen chatted with patients, watching $15,000 dialysis machines do the work of failed kidneys.
In a physician's territory, the medical metaphors were too tempting to resist.
"People in the General Assembly come from various backgrounds," Allen said. "But what you find more than anything else is lawyers. There are no doctors in the House and I think there should be."
"Newell Falkinburg is going to have a good bedside manner with his constituents. He's going to stay in touch with them. He's going to take their pulse."
Falkinburg said he predicts the race will be a close one. Undecided voters, he said, "are peeling off to me."
"I hesitate to say that because I don't really have experience in this but momentum is on my side," he said.
An ill-timed rain shower forced Averill - who is attempting to unseat Del. Richard Cranwell, D-Roanoke County - to change her plans. She was scheduled to take Allen on a tour of downtown Vinton.
She pulled him through a Revco Drug Store instead.
In a tan trench coat and his trademark cowboy boots, Allen stood at the drug store entrance, urging customers to take free pain-reliever samples that an employee was handing out.
The customers weren't biting, governor or no governor.
"Don't you know who he is?" the employee asked a refusing customer.
"I know who he is," the man said, and continued on his way. Allen shrugged.
He will return to Roanoke on Monday for one last campaign appearance before Election Day.
"These are close races," he said. "There's no two ways about it."
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB